“Suck my… Never mind,” said Garth loudly. “I forgot who I was talking to. You’ll take me up on the suggestion.”
“Oh please. You are not my type,” Auberi shot back with a grunt. “Someone tell me what my daughter sees in you.”
“I was hurt two weeks back, and a week after that was when I woke to find Satan there, inserting herself into my recovery,” said Rurik in a state of stunned disbelief. His thoughts were a mess. He hadn’t had a straight one since meeting Liberty and was starting to think he never would again. “I don’t understand her motivation for pretending to be someone who would only gain access to injured operatives like me. I’m of no real importance to The Corporation. I get why Pavel would pop up out of the woodwork. He and I have unfinished business, but I’m not important to The Corporation.”
Auberi was quiet a second. “Rurik, if these notes are right, you’re of huge importance to them. From what I’m reading here, they think they know who your mate is, and they want to test the theory. You’re aware of the lengths they’ve gone to with other mated pairs? They want to create an army of super soldiers. They’ll go about it any way they can. With a mated pair, they could bypass their issues with hybrid creations and have access to a supernatural child in utero and the ability to create more.”
At the word mate, Rurik’s head filled with images of Liberty once again. He swayed and would have fallen had he not reached out fast and grabbed the small side table to steady himself. His near-miss of a meltdown only moments before Auberi had called came flooding back to him. He’d been right about everything lining up perfectly. That all the indicators of her being his mate were in place.
She was his woman. The one made for him.
“Rurik!” shouted Auberi, gaining his attention.
“She’s my mate?” asked Rurik, desperation clinging to his every word. Denial was a powerful beast, managing to win out over the actual animal he carried in him. “She can’t be. No.”
“Rurik,” said Auberi softly. “I hear it in your voice. I think you’ve already suspected as much, am I right?”
“Yes,” admitted Rurik.
“Shit,” said Auberi. “We’re on our way to you. Stay close to her. Be vigilant. The mole escaped our clutches and there is no telling how much information she’s passed on to the enemy. She was there when I gave you the assignment this morning. She heard vital details. She knows PSI is now involved, and if she’s any good at her job, she has to know we’re on to her. That makes her and this Pavel character all the more dangerous.”
Rurik stood there, too horrified at the implications to move or think.
“Rurik!” shouted Auberi.
“W-what?”
“Would he harm your mate?” asked Auberi, hesitation in his voice.
Rurik closed his eyes a moment and hung his head. “Yes.”
“You’re not at full strength,” said Auberi. “Get your mate and the other women somewhere safe. Secure the location. Reach out and pass the details on to us. We should be there in about two hours.”
Looking up, Rurik glanced toward Liberty’s house. He saw movement happening in more than one window again. It was probably nothing more than the fans blowing the curtains again, but on the off chance it wasn’t, he needed to be there.
Knowing his head was hardly in a place where it could make a rational decision, he turned to Bill for help.
Bill was still hopping on one foot, trying to get undone from the wires.
“Look!” Rurik pointed toward the other house.
Bill hopped closer to the window nearest him and ended up falling, landing cheek first against the pane of glass. He peered out the window, his face smushed partially. “What am I looking at, Russia? Hey, when did Liberty Bell’s friends get back?”
Rurik’s breathing increased. He’d have heard and seen Isobel’s car had she returned. “They haven’t.”
Bill began to sink down the window, making a loud sound as his cheek rubbed against the glass. “Well, somebody sure in the hell is over there with her. She ain’t in ten places at once.”
“Rurik?” Auberi bellowed from the phone that was all but forgotten in Rurik’s hand. “What is it?”
Dropping the phone, Rurik covered the distance to Bill and let a claw extend from his finger. He slashed the man free from the wires that were binding him and then caught Bill before he’d have fallen.
Rurik twisted and ran for the door.
“Bye, Frenchie,” said Bill, hurrying out behind Rurik.
The men were down the stairs in record time.
Rurik caught a glimpse of Gus standing where Bill said he was—directly in front of the window, staring out at the street. There wasn’t time to figure out why.
Rurik was out of the safe house and sprinting across the street in no time flat. Much to his surprise, so was Bill. They made it to Liberty’s front door at the same time, which shouldn’t have happened.
Rurik was about to break the door down when Bill pushed in front of him and pounded on it instead. He then hurried behind Rurik, making it look as though Rurik had pounded on the door. “Cool your jets there, Commie. I don’t hear her screaming or anything and Gus isn’t shouting in my head that she’s in danger. How’s about we not scare the fucking shit out of her, okay? You already made such a great impression on her out of the gate. Want to really see if you drive home the psychopath vibe?”
Chapter Twenty
Liberty pulled an apple pie from the oven and turned to place it on one of the cooling racks on the counter, only to see there wasn’t space left. She didn’t want to put the hot pie on the bare countertop and glanced around for a trivet. Her nervous one-woman bake-a-thon had left the other spots in the kitchen filled with baked goods and ingredients.
She glanced at the drawer where they
